Scottish Advanced Higher

Scottish Higher

UCAS Tariff

About this course

Source: UCAS

Course option

3.0years

Full-time | 2020

Subjects

Philosophy

Politics

**About This Course**

Is democracy broken? Can we achieve environmental justice? Should sexist media content be banned?

The big questions facing society are both political and philosophical. The political arena is guided by big ideas, so bringing the rigour of philosophy to your political thinking will have great benefits for you, the political animal. That could be you as a citizen with a vote, as a politician campaigning for office, or as an activist trying to change the terms of the debate. At UEA you will work with world experts in both politics and philosophy, choosing options from a range of fascinating historical and contemporary areas in philosophy and in political theory, including international relations.

**Overview**

Our Philosophy and Politics degree is designed to allow you to engage equally with both disciplines or to swing the degree slightly more to one or the other subject. You have a wide choice of modules in each.

Furthermore, you won’t just study each subject separately; you will also be invited to bring them together. The philosophy experts at UEA are particularly engaged in issues that relate to the future of our planet – and to future generations. Alongside the Western intellectual and cultural heritage, from the Ancient Greeks to the great works of modern political thought in the West, you will be invited to take a module in world philosophies that covers an array of thinkers from the Middle East and Asia. The philosophy of literature, cinema and art is also an area of philosophical focus here.

Then, with our experts in political theory, you will study democracy’s philosophical underpinnings, the clash between different world views, and the philosophical basis of utopian political systems.

Taught by academic leaders in their fields, you’ll be able to choose from a range of fascinating historical and contemporary areas in both philosophy and in politics, including international relations. You’ll come to understand why philosophy is so central to politics – and why all politicians should have a better grasp of it. After all, politicians and commentators are often let down by sloppy thinking, their inability to detect and deflect the shoddy rhetoric of the interviewers, or their simple misunderstandings of basic distinctions: traps that someone who had studied philosophy wouldn’t fall into.

By year 2 you’ll be ready to decide which aspects of philosophy and politics you want to pursue further, depending on your interests and talents. You can take either equal numbers of modules in each subject or weight it a little in one direction or the other. You will take one compulsory keystone module, Philosophy of History and Politics for Second Years, which will invite you to combine the skills, methods and concepts from philosophy and politics. If this proves interesting to you, you can choose to follow it up with the complementary module in the following year, Philosophy of History and Politics for Third Years.

In your final year you’ll also have the opportunity to take research-led special subject modules or to write a dissertation on a topic of your own choosing.

**Disclaimer**

Course details are subject to change. You should always confirm the details on the provider's website: **www.uea.ac.uk**

What students say

We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.

77%

low

Philosophy

79%

med

Politics

How do students rate their degree experience?

The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

Student voice

Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

History

B

Government & Politics

B

English Literature

B

After graduation

Source: DHLE and HECSU

The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

Philosophy

What are graduates doing after six months?

This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.

£19,305

med

Average annual salary

91%

low

Employed or in further education

91%

med

Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

13%

Other elementary services occupations

8%

Business, finance and related associate professionals

8%

Administrative occupations: records

Although there aren't a lot of jobs around for professional philosophers, philosophy degrees are a relatively popular option, with more than 2,000 students graduating in a philosophy-related subject in 2015 - a little down on previous years, but still healthy. Nearly a quarter of philosophy graduates take a postgraduate qualification, and it's a relatively common subject at both Masters and doctorate level — so if you think academic life might be for you, think ahead about how you might fund further study. For those who go into work, philosophy grads tend to go into teaching, accountancy, consulting, journalism, PR, housing, marketing, human resources and the arts while a few go into the computer industry every year, where their logical training is highly rated.

Politics

What are graduates doing after six months?

This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.

£19,500

med

Average annual salary

98%

high

Employed or in further education

86%

med

Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

12%

Other administrative occupations

12%

Other elementary services occupations

8%

Media professionals

The numbers of people taking politics degrees fell sharply last year and we'll keep an eye on this one - it can't really be because of graduates getting poor outcomes as politics grads do about as well as graduates on average. Most politics or international relations graduates don't actually go into politics - although many do, as activists, fundraisers and researchers. Jobs in local and central government are also important. Other popular jobs include marketing and PR, youth and community work, finance roles, HR and academic research (you usually need a postgraduate degree to get into research). Because so many graduates get jobs in the civil service, a lot of graduates find themselves in London after graduating. Politics is a very popular postgraduate subject, and so about one in five politics graduates go on to take another course - usually a one-year Masters - after they finish their degrees.

What about your long term prospects?

Source: LEO

Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.

Philosophy

The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.

£18k

£18k

First year

£23k

£23k

Third year

£25k

£25k

Fifth year

Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.

Politics

The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.

£19k

£19k

First year

£18k

£18k

Third year

£23k

£23k

Fifth year

Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.

Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):

We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.

This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).

We calculate a mean rating of all responses to indicate whether this is high, medium or low compared to the same subject area at other universities.

This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.

Post-six month graduation stats:

This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.

It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.

While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?